The Super Mario Bros Speedrun Record Has Just Been Broken

Super Mario Bros, the video game that revolutionized all video games is still popular to many. Especially, people who like to play it on speedrun, which means finishing the game as fast as possible, no matter the score or how many enemies you kill.

A young man who goes by the name of Darbian on YouTube has just beaten the Super Mario Bros speedrun record. Whereas the previous record was 4 minutes and 57.194 seconds, Darbian managed to do it 4 minutes and 56.878 seconds.

A Run For His Life

The video (which you can see below) shows Darbian on the left and the gameplay on the right. While the first few levels are a cakewalk for the experienced player, the 8th and final world of Super Mario Bros proves more challenging.

Speedrunning isn’t necessarily about being good at the game itself, but more about knowing the shortcuts, the glitches that give you invulnerability for nanoseconds, and, of course, the timing. It really all comes down to hitting those buttons at the right time, which itself is no small feat. So congratulations, Darbian!

A Bit About Super Mario Bros

Not many game designers can say that they revolutionized the whole gaming industry. Well, Shigeru Miyamoto was one of the first to be able to do just that. Back in 1985, when the video game industry was at a low, Super Mario Bros came out, changing not only the way games looked and played, but also created a boom for console gaming development.

It had made Nintendo a market leader, and the company still makes billions today off their flagship character, Mario. This caricature of an Italian plumber is, since that year, on a never-ending quest to save his beloved princess.

The first game alone didn’t offer us much when it came to story, but the green hills, the giant mushrooms, the dark castles were enough for us to understand that we’re in a magical realm where bricks can easily be broken with your head and turtles can throw hammers at you.

It gave a lot, for its time, and at the same time left so much to the imagination. No wonder so many sequels and adaptations and racing games were made. But it’s the original which everyone remembers so fondly. Small wonder so many people still play it, 31 years later.

About Denise Ehrlich

Denise would describe herself as one more of an experience witness than a journalist. Soon after graduating, Denise worked as a journalist during the presidential campaign of Senior US Senator John McCain. Since then, much has changed, and Denise found herself gravitating towards world news.